Silicon Valley investor buys in Village

A California venture capitalist who claims to have been the first to suggest using “viral marketing” in free, Web-based email paid $4.6 million for an apartment in a 12-story prewar building in Greenwich Village, according to city records posted today.

Timothy Draper, a founder and managing director of Silicon Valley-based Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and his wife Melissa closed on the purchase at 65 West 13th Street, known as the Greenwich, on May 23.

Draper’s company was an early investor in such Internet pioneers as Hotmail and Skype. He is a third-generation venture capitalist.

The three-bedroom, 2,800-square-foot condo has three exposures and 11-foot ceilings. The 1906 building was converted to condos in 2001, and has a landscaped roof deck with views of the Empire State Building.

Corcoran senior associate broker Ric Swezey said the unit, which was reduced from over $5 million, took about six months to sell.

“I wanted to get it into the fours, which was partly psychological,” said Swezey, who represented the seller, Sue Berland. “The building has big arched windows. The property itself was very special.”